Medalist - Ch. 50 - Proof of Earnestness
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I don't think so. She had a period of rapid growth, but after becoming a junior she hasn't improved much. She still has the same problems she had as a novice, namely her inconsistent 3A and 3L.
If anything, Hikaru making a mistake should bring home the point that no one is perfect. That should be something positive for Inori who has an inferiority complex. If Inori needs Hikaru to be perfect to feel motivated, then she's building herself up over a lie, and that's a dead end. She'll never truly improve that way.
I don't know if she should be totally over it, but she should be more mentally resilient than this, because her rivals are way stronger, mentally speaking. Inori doesn't stand a chance like this, and she doesn't have much time to change either.
Relying on others is one thing, but depending on others is a different deal. At this point she should be driven by her own desire to win rather than an external source of motivation. Otherwise she's not growing as a person.
Besides, from a story perspective, Inori's not a proper rival if she needs Hikaru to save her. She'd be no different than all the other girls that admire Hikaru from behind, like Yun for example. And just like them, she'll never reach Hikaru that way.
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A rare case when the discussion of the chapter is more dramatic and hot than the chapter itself.
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how do you reach the conclusion that she didn't want to win for herself? Inori isn't skating for hikaru or for tsukasa, she does it because she wants to win herself, she didn't lack any "motivation" either, Inori wants to win as much as the other girls, but she's in a slump, that she rose and finished the sequence proves she tried her best, the stage is bigger than ever and the best of the best, the perfect people she has been chasing have been falling or having accidents, she must be terrified, the only unreal thing here is that Hikaru doesn't feel any kind of pressure, Hikaru should be the one feeling the biggest pressure as everyone else either wants her to crush the competition or to crash and burn.
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From what we have seen in the story so far Inori shouldn't be on the same tier as Iruka or Hikaru yet and while being lucky and taking advantage of your opponents bad days/misfortunes is all part of sports and would have been realistic too, I want Inori's (first) win against Hikaru to feel hype/cathartic not anti-climatic.. Now that's not to say I think it's guaranteed she even beats them at all, I can see it going either way tbh
I hate it when authors introduce once in a lifetime genius characters and then they get nerfed hard whenever the mc is around just so they can beat them, at that point it's better to just make them a regular genius, if you are going for the op rival trope you need to commit fully and luckily it seems like medalist is doing just that. Hikaru should not give up her throne easily or on a fluke, her struggles and adversities needs to be different from a normal #1 skater(and this arc has done a great job showing her internal struggles and given us much needed character development)
beating Hikaru should take a miraculous effort that might even span the entire series where we see Inori progress, fail, get herself back up and keep pushing, it should be a hard journey that almost feels hopeless and impossible.. Letting Inori win at her current level wouldn't feel earned for me narratively, there are a lot of issues she's facing that's been bubbling under the surface for a while that needs to be addressed(her frustration at not progressing as fast as she wants to, the insecurities and inferiority complex she's been hiding under a facade, the communication issues that's been more frequent between her and Tsukasa etc..) Given that this is the first time she's had an actual bad performance on the ice this is such a pivotal moment for Inori's character and I see this setback as a great opportunity to take a step back and face all her issues earnestly
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She skates because she has low self-esteem and feels she's worthless without skating. It's for herself but her motivation is external validation. That's why she felt so ashamed when she bombed her performance. She felt so ashamed she even apologizing for claiming she would ever beat Hikaru. Inori has made skating into the only thing she derives self-validation from. And that's a problem. She can't keep going like that. She has to find her own worth internally, not from an external source.
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But no one wanted Inori to defeat Hikaru right now. Of course it's too soon. What I and others take issue on is that Inori did much worse now than in the previous All Japan. It should have been the other way around, to show that Inori is growing as an skater and as a person. Instead, she showed regression and stagnation. Not only she still has problems with her 3A and 3L, but she's still very fragile emotionally-wise too, just like she was 3 years ago. That's not how you build up a protagonist. You want them to go forward, even if slowly, but forward. You want their skills and their characterization to have a consistent growth. We don't see this here. In fact, out of the main characters, Inori's the one lacking character growth the most. Even side characters like Rioh have shown more character growth than Inori. It shouldn't be like that.
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But that's normal though, progress is not linear, for most athletes there will be a lot of disappointments and setbacks on the way. iirc her problems with her jumps was due to growing pains and body changes which forced her to have to relearn basics and limited her practice time and you see her frustration over this(and how she feels time is running away from her since she started so much later than the others and have a lot of catching up to do), it's not like she's struggling with 3A and 3L for the same reasons she was years ago. Up until now she's had a meteoric rise despite her late start that's basically unheard of in figure skating(from what I understand) so we have seen her grow a lot as a skater, but with everything she was going through it makes sense why the setback happened now purely from a storytelling perspective. Inori's mental state has yet to be tackled really, all she learned was hiding it from those around her(except when she's in front of Hikaru), the underlying issues with her insecurities, her self worth being tied to the ice etc are still there and her hitting rock bottom now is the perfect opportunity to explore that and show character growth(for Tsukasa too)
Not necessarily for example we see everyone thinks tsukasa was very late into the skating but in the eyes of Jun yodaka he has something rare even when he is late into it. So the hawk eye could possibly be the ultimate card that inori could use if tsukasa succeed to pass it down (this is for technical side). As for the mental block we've seen this before where she failed the jump that's easy for her cuz of tsukasa's injury and the way to solve it is in theory easy but hard to execute which is to make her believe in tsukasa.
These are things Inori already went through though. She had disappointments and setbacks before. Why going back to that and make things even worse now? It ricks of stagnation. It feels like every time Inori makes a step forwards, she follows with two steps back. We're going nowhere like that. Isn't it about time to see Inori really start taking off as a skater? And let's not even talk about her growth as a person. That stagnated too, and it's pathetic when even characters like Rioh have shown more character growh then Inori.
You don't know that.
She does have the bad habit of hiding stuff from Tsukasa and putting up a front. But does bombing her All Japan performance help her fix that? No, it doesn't.
According to Riley Fox, Hikaru has the "hawk eye" too. That's the talent to figure out and learn techniques way faster than normal people. Jun was interested in Tsukasa because he has that talent too.
Inori, however, doesn't have that talent.
Hello everyone, I see you guys have so many interesting thoughts here so I’d like to share my own opinion too.
First of all, I think the relationship between Inori and Hikaru isnt’t quite healthy. Not because they have bad personality, it’s because they are still young, immature and don’t know how to deal with their emotion in an appropriate way.
I’d like to say about Inori first. She treats Hikaru as her friend because Hikaru helps her, says that she is Hikaru’s friend. Inori got impressed by her generousness and friendliness (Inori sees how good Hikaru is, but Hikaru doesn’t look down on Inori who is still at preliminary). However, Inori’s personality is competitive, she loves to compete, and want to be no.1. This personality is somehow too strong and blinds her way. Inori’s obsession towards Hikaru turns out to be unbearable in bad intention. That’s why she got serious aggressive toward Hikaru after All-Japan Novice. I’d like to say, this is a bad behavior, no sportmanship. If Inori decides that she is no longer be friend with Hikaru because of competing, that’s fine. But showing obvious discomfort toward Hikaru in normal condition and making people surrounding feel uncomfortable is what you shouldn’t do. What I see in chapter 50 is Inori says sorry to Hikaru for what she did to Hikaru after All-Japan Novice. Inori is still a good girl.
Secondly, I agree that Inori has some mentally weak points relating to people around her (who she knows well). But at the time she breaks Tsukasa ribs, Inori has the support of Uobuchi an Tsukasa to overcome. This time, she doesn’t receive that kind of support (or she tries to hide her feeling so she can’t get the support). So I look forward to the author to fix her behavior toward adults (doing what she thinks is appropriate when associating with grown-ups) or her mentality for being stronger.
This time, things make Inori be frustrated is loosing herself expectation, she can’t prove to others, to Hikaru that she is progressing, and breaks her promise to Hikaru. Inori is an athele who truly appreciate people’s supports and her effort. But still afraid of people’s crtitism and irony. It’s kinda common thoughts, it’s just that Inori becomes very emotional because her mindset toward wining and proving is very strange (her mental is strange but not so ridiculous as her technical progress 😊)
Second is Hikaru, I always have a thought that this girl is built up as a truly genius girl. I don’t know her feeling toward no.1 position because there’s no flashback here (even Hikaru impresses Inori’s spirit of wining, so she should be equal or lower ambition of wining when comparing to Inori). But Hikaru is LONELY. Hikaru is lonely because she keeps winning. I don’t know how to say but it seems like anyone (in figure skating, I watched figure skating in real life) stands in no.1 for so long, they feel lonely. Even they have people’s supports. Hikaru wants someone understands her feeling. (By the way, I don’t feel much empathize about Hikaru’s personality, it seems like she’s so lucky, her thought (except skating) can be very positive, too good, and especially, very normal although her role model Yodaka Jun is totally opposite, and her mindset is to act as people’s expectation). The author doesn’t show anything as her weak points. It’s not same as the protagonist Inori. At first, Hikaru notices Inori because the feeling that Inori treats her as a normal girl, not a Queen of Novice or sth. Then Hikaru believes that Inori can be by her side because Inori dares to compete against her. That’s why Hikaru always follow and waiting for Inori. This is her obsession towards Inori (someone can understand her). Besides, although Hikaru is mature than Inori, Hikaru makes many wrong assumptions, it’s about ready to give up everything based on her assumption of people’s feelings, meanings, or comparing each other. So, in this chapter 50, I feel like Hikaru scares that Inori could give up and leave her alone so she tries to do what Yuna encourages her. And recently, she realized that many of her assumptions are wrong so she gradually has different world view comparing to Jun Yodaka. But I don’t think this time, Hikaru can easily rebell against Yodaka’s mindset. It’s reasonable that an experienced adult’s mindset can’t be destroyed by a 13-year-old-girl’s mindset simply. And if it’s destroyed, Hikaru and Yodaka Jun have to break up soon (or their relationship will be kinda lame). This is the first time Hikaru doesn’t follow Yodaka’s instruction, who knows what happens, maybe Inori will become Hikaru’s weak points 😊
However, the author builds lots of their skating skills in novice. It’s time for emotion and personality development (instead of making your main characters injury). Hikaru and Inori still have 4-5 years ahead to go to Olympics, and if this series is lucky, we have to wait for next 4-5 years in senior so that 2 of them can compete in Olympics event. By the way, due to Hikaru’s transfer, Inori and Hikaru only can compete to each other at All-Japan as domestic event. They can meet each other in international events but it’s just accidentally, ocassionally so it’s hard to keep their rival relationship. I think the author makes Hikaru and Inori’s obsession to each other, so that they can affect on each other, not like the author make the “obsession” is something for fully appreciating.
First of all, I think the relationship between Inori and Hikaru isnt’t quite healthy. Not because they have bad personality, it’s because they are still young, immature and don’t know how to deal with their emotion in an appropriate way.
I’d like to say about Inori first. She treats Hikaru as her friend because Hikaru helps her, says that she is Hikaru’s friend. Inori got impressed by her generousness and friendliness (Inori sees how good Hikaru is, but Hikaru doesn’t look down on Inori who is still at preliminary). However, Inori’s personality is competitive, she loves to compete, and want to be no.1. This personality is somehow too strong and blinds her way. Inori’s obsession towards Hikaru turns out to be unbearable in bad intention. That’s why she got serious aggressive toward Hikaru after All-Japan Novice. I’d like to say, this is a bad behavior, no sportmanship. If Inori decides that she is no longer be friend with Hikaru because of competing, that’s fine. But showing obvious discomfort toward Hikaru in normal condition and making people surrounding feel uncomfortable is what you shouldn’t do. What I see in chapter 50 is Inori says sorry to Hikaru for what she did to Hikaru after All-Japan Novice. Inori is still a good girl.
Secondly, I agree that Inori has some mentally weak points relating to people around her (who she knows well). But at the time she breaks Tsukasa ribs, Inori has the support of Uobuchi an Tsukasa to overcome. This time, she doesn’t receive that kind of support (or she tries to hide her feeling so she can’t get the support). So I look forward to the author to fix her behavior toward adults (doing what she thinks is appropriate when associating with grown-ups) or her mentality for being stronger.
This time, things make Inori be frustrated is loosing herself expectation, she can’t prove to others, to Hikaru that she is progressing, and breaks her promise to Hikaru. Inori is an athele who truly appreciate people’s supports and her effort. But still afraid of people’s crtitism and irony. It’s kinda common thoughts, it’s just that Inori becomes very emotional because her mindset toward wining and proving is very strange (her mental is strange but not so ridiculous as her technical progress 😊)
Second is Hikaru, I always have a thought that this girl is built up as a truly genius girl. I don’t know her feeling toward no.1 position because there’s no flashback here (even Hikaru impresses Inori’s spirit of wining, so she should be equal or lower ambition of wining when comparing to Inori). But Hikaru is LONELY. Hikaru is lonely because she keeps winning. I don’t know how to say but it seems like anyone (in figure skating, I watched figure skating in real life) stands in no.1 for so long, they feel lonely. Even they have people’s supports. Hikaru wants someone understands her feeling. (By the way, I don’t feel much empathize about Hikaru’s personality, it seems like she’s so lucky, her thought (except skating) can be very positive, too good, and especially, very normal although her role model Yodaka Jun is totally opposite, and her mindset is to act as people’s expectation). The author doesn’t show anything as her weak points. It’s not same as the protagonist Inori. At first, Hikaru notices Inori because the feeling that Inori treats her as a normal girl, not a Queen of Novice or sth. Then Hikaru believes that Inori can be by her side because Inori dares to compete against her. That’s why Hikaru always follow and waiting for Inori. This is her obsession towards Inori (someone can understand her). Besides, although Hikaru is mature than Inori, Hikaru makes many wrong assumptions, it’s about ready to give up everything based on her assumption of people’s feelings, meanings, or comparing each other. So, in this chapter 50, I feel like Hikaru scares that Inori could give up and leave her alone so she tries to do what Yuna encourages her. And recently, she realized that many of her assumptions are wrong so she gradually has different world view comparing to Jun Yodaka. But I don’t think this time, Hikaru can easily rebell against Yodaka’s mindset. It’s reasonable that an experienced adult’s mindset can’t be destroyed by a 13-year-old-girl’s mindset simply. And if it’s destroyed, Hikaru and Yodaka Jun have to break up soon (or their relationship will be kinda lame). This is the first time Hikaru doesn’t follow Yodaka’s instruction, who knows what happens, maybe Inori will become Hikaru’s weak points 😊
However, the author builds lots of their skating skills in novice. It’s time for emotion and personality development (instead of making your main characters injury). Hikaru and Inori still have 4-5 years ahead to go to Olympics, and if this series is lucky, we have to wait for next 4-5 years in senior so that 2 of them can compete in Olympics event. By the way, due to Hikaru’s transfer, Inori and Hikaru only can compete to each other at All-Japan as domestic event. They can meet each other in international events but it’s just accidentally, ocassionally so it’s hard to keep their rival relationship. I think the author makes Hikaru and Inori’s obsession to each other, so that they can affect on each other, not like the author make the “obsession” is something for fully appreciating.
Not true. She still has a chance. The 2nd and 3rd from the All Japan have no greater a shot at a position on the Junior Worlds team than the Junior GP finalists, as well as athletes who fulfill several other classes of criteria (in practice it's all mostly the same 3~4 people).
Read the actual rules: https://scramble-talk.com/worldjrchampionsips2025-148266
Of course, failing this hard makes her less attractive in the eyes of the committee that will be picking the representatives, but if she wins the GP...
Yes which is the big question for tsukasa could he succeed in teaching that to inori? The big difference imo between inori and Hikaru is the hawk eye. The hawk eye is about spatial awareness it's about understanding your own body and the surrounding which imo we see the glimpse of it succeed when tsukasa told inori to find symbols in the muscle or the air when he teaches inori how to do quad.
I bring up the hawk eye is because this ability could make the time frame became neglectable. Through out the story we've not seen once where a coach that has this ability passed it to their student. So hawk eye isn't denied nor supported to be a passable ability. That's why this will become tsukasa final arc cuz if he succeed he could keep his promise with inori to make her as if she was born to skate.
So far it looks like this is an inborn talent so I don't know if Tsukasa can pass this ability to Inori. We have to wait and see. I agree that getting this ability would change things in a major way for Inori. It would allow her to finally master her jumps (especially the 3L) and also increase her GOE score.
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I see the chapters have generated quite a lot of discussion 
. I'm not really the most analytical person, so I rarely do this kind of analysis. However, Medalist is the series I dedicate most of my thoughts to, so I feel like I have to put in some effort. I’m not expecting to be particularly insightful; this is more of a thought exercise.
First of all, I never expected Inori to fail so completely. During these two months without Medalist, that idea never even crossed my mind. Not once. That doesn’t mean I disagree with Tsurumaikada’s decision, because these things happen. You don’t have to be an athlete to know that sometimes, even when you give your best, you still fail miserably. Everyone has had that one exam where, despite studying so much, they completely blanked when faced with the test paper. These experiences crush your soul, and the worst part is that, many times, there isn’t even a lesson to be learned. I don’t think Inori has anything specific to learn from this failure. The opportunity to grow comes from how she decides to rationalize it.
That said, I don’t think Inori is currently in a position to use this failure as an opportunity for growth. Her goal as a skater has always been straightforward: she wants to win, to be the best. But her reasoning has become quite extreme. In Score 12, she tells Mittens that she can’t afford to fail because people would start doubting Tsukasa. In Score 40, however, her justification is even more extreme: “If I can’t be the best in the place I want to be the most, then there is no meaning to my life!” Hikaru compares her thinking to Jun Yodaka’s, but I think there is one key difference. Jun can afford to think that way, but Inori can’t. She is not a genius who lands every jump flawlessly or wins gold in every competition. Since she cannot guarantee success, tying her self-worth solely to victory only opens her up to despair. What happens if she hits a slump? Will she lose all hope and give up?
I believe Inori’s growth will come when she changes the reason she skates. Does that mean she’ll stop aiming to be number one, to be a gold medalist? No. Inori will never abandon that goal. It defines both her and the manga itself. However, I believe the key to her growth will be Hikaru. One thing that caught my attention was Hikaru’s line in Score 50: “I’ll put on a performance so brilliant that you’ll forget about winning and losing.” It made me think about why Inori started skating in the first place. We know she was captivated by her sister’s skating, but not necessarily by her victories. In fact, we don’t even know if Mika ever won anything. What truly caught Inori’s heart was how much Mika shined when competing and how beautiful her skating was. Inori wanted to be like that. But at some point, she started equating being the best with being the most beautiful and most mesmerizing, believing that in order to be the latter, you have to be the former.
That’s where Hikaru comes into play. With nothing at stake, Inori will be able to focus purely on the beauty of her performance, just like when she first watched Mika skate. That will help her realize why she started skating in the first place. It’s not that you shine the most because you win; it’s that you win because you shine the most. This slight change in mindset will help her overcome the mental block she suffers from. She won’t be thinking about how she can't afford to fail a jump just before attempting it, but instead about how graceful it will be when she succeeds. For Hikaru, this will also mark her growth, as she fulfills the vow she made in Score 46 to become a light of hope.
Perhaps I haven’t been entirely coherent, but I needed to put my thoughts into words. My predictions will very likely be wrong (I don’t have a great track record, lol), but it’s still fun to delve into the characters and their motivations. Above all, I trust Tsurumaikada’s decisions, as he has never failed me.
It goes without saying, but massive thanks to the translation team! If I had to wait for the official release, I’d lose my mind. Thank you for allowing us to enjoy this masterpiece!
. I'm not really the most analytical person, so I rarely do this kind of analysis. However, Medalist is the series I dedicate most of my thoughts to, so I feel like I have to put in some effort. I’m not expecting to be particularly insightful; this is more of a thought exercise.First of all, I never expected Inori to fail so completely. During these two months without Medalist, that idea never even crossed my mind. Not once. That doesn’t mean I disagree with Tsurumaikada’s decision, because these things happen. You don’t have to be an athlete to know that sometimes, even when you give your best, you still fail miserably. Everyone has had that one exam where, despite studying so much, they completely blanked when faced with the test paper. These experiences crush your soul, and the worst part is that, many times, there isn’t even a lesson to be learned. I don’t think Inori has anything specific to learn from this failure. The opportunity to grow comes from how she decides to rationalize it.
That said, I don’t think Inori is currently in a position to use this failure as an opportunity for growth. Her goal as a skater has always been straightforward: she wants to win, to be the best. But her reasoning has become quite extreme. In Score 12, she tells Mittens that she can’t afford to fail because people would start doubting Tsukasa. In Score 40, however, her justification is even more extreme: “If I can’t be the best in the place I want to be the most, then there is no meaning to my life!” Hikaru compares her thinking to Jun Yodaka’s, but I think there is one key difference. Jun can afford to think that way, but Inori can’t. She is not a genius who lands every jump flawlessly or wins gold in every competition. Since she cannot guarantee success, tying her self-worth solely to victory only opens her up to despair. What happens if she hits a slump? Will she lose all hope and give up?
I believe Inori’s growth will come when she changes the reason she skates. Does that mean she’ll stop aiming to be number one, to be a gold medalist? No. Inori will never abandon that goal. It defines both her and the manga itself. However, I believe the key to her growth will be Hikaru. One thing that caught my attention was Hikaru’s line in Score 50: “I’ll put on a performance so brilliant that you’ll forget about winning and losing.” It made me think about why Inori started skating in the first place. We know she was captivated by her sister’s skating, but not necessarily by her victories. In fact, we don’t even know if Mika ever won anything. What truly caught Inori’s heart was how much Mika shined when competing and how beautiful her skating was. Inori wanted to be like that. But at some point, she started equating being the best with being the most beautiful and most mesmerizing, believing that in order to be the latter, you have to be the former.
That’s where Hikaru comes into play. With nothing at stake, Inori will be able to focus purely on the beauty of her performance, just like when she first watched Mika skate. That will help her realize why she started skating in the first place. It’s not that you shine the most because you win; it’s that you win because you shine the most. This slight change in mindset will help her overcome the mental block she suffers from. She won’t be thinking about how she can't afford to fail a jump just before attempting it, but instead about how graceful it will be when she succeeds. For Hikaru, this will also mark her growth, as she fulfills the vow she made in Score 46 to become a light of hope.
Perhaps I haven’t been entirely coherent, but I needed to put my thoughts into words. My predictions will very likely be wrong (I don’t have a great track record, lol), but it’s still fun to delve into the characters and their motivations. Above all, I trust Tsurumaikada’s decisions, as he has never failed me.
It goes without saying, but massive thanks to the translation team! If I had to wait for the official release, I’d lose my mind. Thank you for allowing us to enjoy this masterpiece!
So far nothing support it nor denied it we have a coach that choose the student because she has it or the coaching the student that already have it we never see coach has it and tried to pass it (if it failed it would support that it is unpassable talent and if it succeed it would denied that this is unpassable) that's why it becomes a question. This is also similar with the question of people start late = fail because we mostly see that only the early bird who could stand at the top.
You said Inori would not give up her goal of being number one and getting the gold medal, but here you say Inori should stop caring about winning. I don't think you can achieve one without the other though. Hikaru has the luxury to say "I don't care about being number one" because she already is. But Inori doesn't have that luxury. If she wants to be number one, if she wants the Olympic gold, she has to beat Hikaru. No amount of mental trickery will change the fact.
I do agree she has to stop tying her self-worth to her performance as a skater. But if the solution to that problem the author came up with is to get rid of Inori's desire to win, then I will probably drop the manga. Because I don't think you can get to be number one without the desire to win. Hikaru can do it because she's a peerless prodigy. She doesn't even have to train as much as everyone else because she has the hawk eye skill that allows her to master techniques much faster than normal people But Inori doesn't have those cheats. She's a normal person, and she has come this far driven by her desire to win. There are people who do skating or others sports just because they like it and they don't care about winning. That's fine. But that means they will never become number one. You need that burning desire driving you to victory in order to become number one, imo.
There should be a better way to help Inori stop tying her self-worth to her performance as a skater. But I'm not the author so I've no clue what's gonna happen.
She does, to some yet unknown extent.
Recall that the Leg Break Sit Spin was not originally part of her first program. She added it in after watching Tsukasa do it once and practicing the heck out of it in secret.
Heck, her rapid growth in two years where she's pulling off quads is evidence of it.
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